The field of the disclosure relates generally to rotatable machinery and, more particularly, to a method and system for maintaining collinear alignment of the rotatable machine during startup and operation.
At least some mounting systems for rotatable machines, such as gas turbine engines, include a single fixed pin mounting element and a single sliding pin mounting element. These mounting elements are designed to secure the rotatable machine to a bulkhead or deck, such as a deck of a seagoing vessel, so that an output shaft of the rotatable machine, which rotates about the axis of rotation of the machine, can be mechanically coupled to a drive shaft, such as a generator shaft or a propeller shaft, of the vessel.
Many conventional mounting systems are designed such that the axis of rotation of the rotatable machine is initially offset from the drive shaft until the rotatable machine has reached a particular set of operating parameters when the axis of rotation translates into alignment with the centerline. Thus, when the rotatable machine is cold or climbing to a nominal operating temperature, the axis of rotation of the rotatable machine, and hence the output shaft, may not align with the drive shaft.